The Ball and the Cross eBook

“But then he came,” broke out MacIan,
“and my soul said to me: ’Give up
fighting, and you will become like That. Give
up vows and dogmas, and fixed things, and you may
grow like That. You may learn, also, that fog
of false philosophy. You may grow fond of that
mire of crawling, cowardly morals, and you may come
to think a blow bad, because it hurts, and not because
it humiliates. You may come to think murder
wrong, because it is violent, and not because it is
unjust. Oh, you blasphemer of the good, an hour
ago I almost loved you! But do not fear for
me now. I have heard the word Love pronounced
in his intonation; and I know exactly what
it means. On guard!’”

The swords caught on each other with a dreadful clang
and jar, full of the old energy and hate; and at once
plunged and replunged. Once more each man’s
heart had become the magnet of a mad sword.
Suddenly, furious as they were, they were frozen for
a moment motionless.

“What noise is that?” asked the Highlander,
hoarsely.

“I think I know,” replied Turnbull.

“What?... What?” cried the other.

“The student of Shaw and Tolstoy has made up
his remarkable mind,” said Turnbull, quietly.
“The police are coming up the hill.”

VI. THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER

Between high hedges in Hertfordshire, hedges so high
as to create a kind of grove, two men were running.
They did not run in a scampering or feverish manner,
but in the steady swing of the pendulum. Across
the great plains and uplands to the right and left
of the lane, a long tide of sunset light rolled like
a sea of ruby, lighting up the long terraces of the
hills and picking out the few windows of the scattered
hamlets in startling blood-red sparks. But the
lane was cut deep in the hill and remained in an abrupt
shadow. The two men running in it had an impression
not uncommonly experienced between those wild green
English walls; a sense of being led between the walls
of a maze.

Though their pace was steady it was vigorous; their
faces were heated and their eyes fixed and bright.
There was, indeed, something a little mad in the
contrast between the evening’s stillness over
the empty country-side, and these two figures fleeing
wildly from nothing. They had the look of two
lunatics, possibly they were.

“Are you all right?” said Turnbull, with
civility. “Can you keep this up?”

“Quite easily, thank you,” replied MacIan.
“I run very well.”

“Is that a qualification in a family of warriors?”
asked Turnbull.

“Undoubtedly. Rapid movement is essential,”
answered MacIan, who never saw a joke in his life.

Turnbull broke out into a short laugh, and silence
fell between them, the panting silence of runners.

Then MacIan said: “We run better than any
of those policemen. They are too fat. Why
do you make your policemen so fat?”